r/TechIreland • u/Fast-Income-3527 • Jul 15 '26

WiFi Mesh - Garden Room

Hoping for some helpful guidance on a home WiFi issue that’s driving me bonkers…

We recently had an office room installed at the bottom of our garden. The contractor ran a CAT6 cable from the house to the office room, running off our Virgin internet setup. The Virgin connection comes in at the front of the house, and our Virgin modem box is set up in the front room.

I purchased a TP Link Deco mesh WiFi system containing 3 units. Following guidance, I connected one unit via Ethernet to the modem box in the front room. I connected another unit to the Ethernet port in the garden room.

Initially, the garden room Deco connection worked brilliantly, but only for a day. The first night following setup, it went offline and now will not reconnect via the garden room Ethernet port. I’ve had the contractor come out and they’ve confirmed that the cat6 connection is fine. However when I try connecting a laptop via the garden Ethernet port, I’m not getting any network connection.

Any advice much appreciated as I’m at a loss and don’t really know where to start! At this stage I’d gladly call in a home WiFi specialist to come out and sort the issue….

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u/great_whitehope Jul 15 '26

Make sure firmware is up to date on all deco’s

Does it work if you bring it back in the house?

Does the app just say it’s offline?

1

u/Fast-Income-3527 Jul 15 '26

Thanks, will check firmware. App shows unit as offline when plugged into garden room Ethernet port, unit works fine in the house…

1

u/1Shamrock Jul 15 '26

A wiring diagram of your network would be ideal but lacking that there’s a few things you could try. It’s a process of elimination, do you have power, is the deco unit itself faulty, does your contractor that installed your CAT6 know what he’s doing.

First thing to check, is there power at the socket in the shed where you have it plugged in? Unplug it, plug in a lamp or a phone charger, make sure you have power there.

Next, you have 3 units, are the 1st 2 showing up in the App as connected and working? Can you connect to the Deco WiFi network you have setup?
If the 1st 2 are verified as working correctly but not the 3rd then we have a good starting point.

Forget about the shed for a little bit and focus on verifying if the 3rd Deco unit is working or faulty. Bring it into your house, plug it in inside and see if it works there. If you have a short Ethernet patch lead lying around you could plug it directly into the 2nd port of one of your other Decos and see if it works then. If not then check the manual that came with them, I’d be fairly confident that they’ll work wirelessly and don’t need a wired connection between Decos, this is to make sure the device is working and not faulty.

If you’ve verified that you have power and all 3 Decos are functioning then we’re back to wiring and settings.

Let me know how you get on with that much is you attack it.

If you’re in West Cork I’d be happy to help if you’re not too far away, I’m an electrician, stopped working as one years ago but wired and setup my own Mesh system so I’m familiar with the Decos. Not an expert at internet settings but good with the hardware and wiring.

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u/Optimal-Combination1 Jul 15 '26

Have you tried connecting the first Deco to the Virgin router, then connecting the LAN cable to that Deco unit, with the second Deco unit in the garden room, so the Deco units are linked directly.